by Rachel Lee
At last she climbed out of the car. The wind felt a little like Chicago, although considerably drier. It nipped through her jacket and gray slacks like a familiar bite. Not that she’d had that long to get used to it.
She watched the leaves blowing down the street and wondered if her life were blowing away with them. Big mistake, big consequences, and in an instant everything was different. She’d been a fool. Maybe that was the thing hardest to forgive in herself.
The porch light flipped on. Wyatt had seen her. The house itself was mostly dark, but he must have caught sight of her from somewhere. A fan window over the front door spilled warm light, and stained-glass insets on the front door glowed with color. His home. Inviting her.
The front door opened. She recognized his figure immediately, tall and straight with broad shoulders and narrow hips.
“Amber?”
“Coming,” she answered promptly, settling her purse over her shoulder. Her bags could wait. For later, for never—the next few hours would tell.
She strode up the walk, climbed three steps, crossed the wide covered porch and walked straight into his waiting arms.
She hadn’t expected this hug, but it felt so good she simply accepted it and fought down unwanted tears of relief. He’d never hugged her like this before, warm and tight, and reality proved to be far better than her youthful imaginings. She wished she could stay there forever. All too soon, he let her go.
“Come inside,” he said kindly. “It’s getting cold out here.”
The house was large, and the foyer bigger than she expected, designed in a very different age. A dark wooden staircase led to the upstairs, dark wood wainscoting lined the walls beneath walls painted Wedgwood blue and the floor itself was highly polished wood decorated with a few large oriental rugs.
But she was more interested in Wyatt himself. Time had changed him some. His face had sharper lines and seemed squarer than she remembered from four years ago at that convention. She thought she saw flecks of silver in his nearly black hair. Age had filled him out a bit, but in all the right places. He wore a dark gray sweater and jeans and was walking around in his stocking feet.
He smiled. “Come get comfortable,” he suggested, his dark eyes friendly. “You must be tired after all that driving.”
He helped her out of her jacket and hung it and her purse on the wooden coat tree beside the door. Glancing around again, she felt as if she’d wandered into a museum.
“Somehow,” she said, “I didn’t imagine you living in a place like this.”
“It’s been in the family for nearly a hundred years. A white elephant, but one I can’t let go of. Or should I say can’t get rid of.”
She laughed, feeling some of her tension ease. “I need to move around, if that’s okay. I haven’t been out from behind the wheel in five hours.”
“Pushed it, huh?”
“Very definitely.”
“Well, feel free to wander. Something to drink? Coffee, tea, cocoa or stronger?”
Stronger was out of the question now, although she would have loved a glass of wine. “Cocoa sounds great. Can I follow you around?”
“Be my guest.”
How awkward, she thought. For both of them. All those years between, and a bunch of emails, a few phone calls and a couple of meetings didn’t make up for it. And for all she’d recently bared her soul to him on the phone, being here still felt...like she didn’t belong?
The kitchen had been modernized, a shock after the foyer. The appliances were all new, stainless steel, and there was even a dishwasher. What she guessed were the original wood cabinets had glass-paned doors outlined in fresh white. Countertops had been covered in light gray granite that matched a tile floor.
“This is beautiful,” she said, taking it in. “Big.” Big enough for a nice-size island and a matching table.
“I have a secret chef somewhere inside,” Wyatt replied lightly. “He rarely gets the chance to come out and play, though. Too busy.”
“I love to cook, too, but I hear you. Ninety-hour weeks and I usually wind up at some restaurant.”
“Same here. Say, did anyone in law school ever warn you this profession wouldn’t leave time for a life?”
She had to laugh because it was so true. “Powder room?”
“Under the staircase in the foyer. Can’t miss it.”
She walked back into that amazing area and found the half bath without any problem. It, too, had been modernized with pleasant wallpaper and fixtures of recent vintage. She paused in front of the mirror, however, and stared at her reflection, realizing she appeared gaunt.
God. This had taken a lot out of her, maybe more than she had realized. She finger combed her short dark hair and tucked the bob behind her ears, but of course that didn’t hide the circles under her eyes, and she must have lost a few pounds. Desperate to look less like a corpse, she pinched her cheeks to bring some color into them. This couldn’t be good for the child she carried.
It was not the first time she’d thought about that, but mostly she had skimmed over it. Now she faced it, and felt her knees weakening. It was real, all of it was real, and the cloak of numbness she’d been wearing much of the time since everything had blown up simply vanished.
No longer an intellectual exercise, no longer a problem of humiliation, no longer a situation to be solved. It was her and the child growing inside her and nobody else. The reality was stark, the road ahead invisible.
A mess? It was more than a mess. She’d exploded her entire life into little pieces.
Chapter Two
Amber had headed to bed right after the cocoa. Wyatt had brought her suitcases in and showed her to the best guest room, then returned to his work before going to bed himself.
Last night had been uncomfortable, he thought as he made coffee in the morning and scrambled some eggs. They hadn’t talked at all, except superficially and briefly about her trip, about the room that was to be hers. Strangers. It felt like two strangers. He hadn’t really anticipated that. In his mind their friendship had remained as fresh as yesterday. Emails and other contacts didn’t quite bridge the years. Nor did it help his sense of awkwardness to discover that he still found her every bit as attractive as he ever had.
But he was worried about her, too. The stress of the past weeks had clearly worked on her. He’d expected her to look a bit older than she had when he’d run into her at that conference four years ago, but not this pinched and drained. Worn. Her situation was awful, so maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised.
He paused, looking out the window over the sink, noting that the wind was still blowing and leaves were still flying. By now, he thought with mild amusement, all the leaves in town should have been gone. But as he watched some of them eddy between the houses, he guessed they would hang around to be raked.
He heard steps behind him and turned to greet Amber. She looked a bit better this morning and was already dressed as if she were going to work in a navy blue pantsuit and white blouse. A bit much for hanging around the house.
“Well, good morning,” he said with a smile.
She smiled back. “Sorry I was so dead last night.”
“Long trip,” he said. “Eggs? Toast? Coffee?”
“All of the above, please.” She settled onto a stool on the far side of the island. “You have to work today, of course.”
“I cleared most of my schedule for the week,” he answered, turning back to the counter and cracking two more eggs into a bowl to whisk. “A few hours each day, rather than all day. Some hearings I can’t avoid, and a trial that’ll probably be over in a couple of hours after we finish jury selection.”
“Can I come watch?”
“Of course.” If she were in the courtroom with him, at least he wouldn’t be wondering if she were sitting here feeling like
hell and unable to do a damn thing about it.
He gave her a cup of coffee and the eggs he’d already cooked. “Dig in.”
He started making his own eggs and heard her say, “You didn’t have to clear your schedule for me.”
“No, but I did anyway. You could have gone anywhere if solitude and four walls were all you wanted.”
He was pleased to hear a quiet laugh from her. “Sadly true,” she answered.
A minute later he carried his own plate and mug to the island and stood on the far side from her. “It’s okay, Amber,” he said before he started eating. “You’re welcome here and we’ll get over the awkwardness soon.”
“I didn’t expect it,” she admitted. “In some ways I felt as if all these years hadn’t passed.”
“In some ways they haven’t.” He sipped his coffee. “But even back then we didn’t share quarters.”
That drew another laugh from her, a small one.
“Look, this place is practically a hotel. Just do whatever you need to in order to feel comfortable. Spend as much time or as little as you want with me. Make your own ground rules. I’m pretty adaptable.”
She raised her face to smile at him. “Generous, too. Most of the problem is me, Wyatt. Everything is all messed up. Blown up. I feel as if I’m in a million pieces right now.”
“Hardly surprising. You want to talk some more?”
“Maybe after court. You must need to go soon.”
He glanced at the clock. Seven thirty. “Fifteen minutes. Can you be ready?”
“I am ready. But don’t you need time to change?”
Wyatt looked down at his jeans and polo shirt. “No.”
“Wow,” Amber breathed. “I might like this place.”
“Well, I do wear a robe. Most of the time.”
The sound of the laughter that pealed out of her warmed his heart. If she could still laugh like that, then everything would be okay. For her.
Because suddenly, for him, he wasn’t so sure. An attractive damsel in distress. Always his weak point, and more so for Amber.
* * *
The day was chilly and the wind whipped with ferocity. Amber almost felt like ducking as they left the house and walked to his car in the driveway. “Is this wind usual?” she asked once they were in the car.
“No. Usually we have a breeze, nothing bad, although it can get to be pretty constant if you get out onto the prairie. But here...” He shook his head as he turned over the ignition. “Some kind of front must be in the area, but I haven’t looked at the weather.”
“I was getting used to the wind in Chicago. I don’t think it ever stops. But this is pretty with the leaves tossing in the wind.”
“Until it comes time to rake,” he answered.
“Will there be anything left?” she wondered as he wove their way down the street toward where she presumed they’d find the courthouse.
It was only a few blocks away, and she was instantly charmed. She’d half expected some functional building that had been erected recently, but instead saw a gorgeous older redbrick building with impressive columns sitting in a square filled with concrete benches and tables and the remains of summer flowers. And the statue of a soldier, watching over it all.
“Did they transplant this from New England?” she asked, amazed.
“The folks who built it wanted something to remind them of home, I guess. We have a church that looks like it was snatched out of the jaws of Vermont, too.”
Amber was charmed. It might not be a large town, but what she had seen of it so far was gracious and inviting. Wyatt pulled around to the back of the courthouse and into a parking space labeled with his name: Hon. Wyatt Carter. Some of the other spaces had filled up, but they were all reserved—county attorney, court reporter and others.
“We finally emerged into the new century,” he remarked after they climbed out and headed for the back door.
“Meaning?”
“We had to build a new jail outside town. It wasn’t so long ago prisoners were kept in cells over the sheriff’s office, but six cells is just about enough to dry out the drunks overnight. So...big jail. And I do a lot of my hearings over closed-circuit TV. No big deal to you, I’m sure, but it was a very big deal when we transitioned here.”
She could almost imagine it. In a very short space of time he’d given her the feeling that this was an old Western town stepping very slowly into the modern era. She looked around just before he opened the door for her and saw that the entire square was surrounded by stores. She liked it.
She followed him into a narrow hallway painted institutional green with wood floors that creaked beneath their feet. They passed restrooms, the rear side of the county clerk’s office, then climbed some equally creaky stairs to the second floor, where they entered his chambers.
The walls in the outer office were lined with books of statutes, something that must be left over from earlier days, she decided. Everyone relied on online research these days, and law libraries were available at the touch of a key if you had a subscription. They’d certainly done that in law school. But she looked around the walls, admiring the books, their solid look and feel. Two desks sat in the middle of all this magnificence.
“My reporter and clerk work there,” he said.
Then they passed through to a chamber that was all dark wood, a massive desk and a few chairs. She thought she could detect old aromas of cigar smoke embedded in the walls. The only modernity was a multiple line phone and a computer.
“My home away from home,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’ve got a few minutes. Do you want to stay here or go into the courtroom?”
She’d been in a judge’s chambers before, of course. It was inevitable for a lawyer. It didn’t look like a place to browse, and she’d come to see him in court anyway.
“Courtroom,” she answered decisively. A kind of tickled excitement awoke in her. She was going to see her old friend in the role of a judge. It was just cool enough to make her forget her other problems.
She walked through the door he pointed out and emerged in the courtroom, walking past the raised bench and past the attorney’s tables, which were already occupied, ignoring the curious looks as she took a seat in the front row. She had no idea what was on his docket for today or whether the people waiting in the gallery with her were here to deal with legal problems or just to watch, but the place was filling rapidly. The clock slipped past eight, almost as a courtesy to late arrivals, then a bailiff, in what appeared to be a deputy’s uniform, called the court to order and announced Wyatt. “All rise. The Tenth District Circuit Court of the state of Wyoming is now in session, the Honorable Wyatt Carter presiding.”
He came striding in, wearing a black robe, his jeans and boots flashing beneath it. She had to cover her mouth with her hand. She hadn’t expected to enjoy this so much.
Wyatt tapped the microphone in front of him, and the thump came across the speakers. “All right,” he said, looking out over the room. “Traffic court. Really, folks, don’t you know better?”
And thus it began.
* * *
Amber was soon amazed. Wyatt didn’t treat most of these people as if he just wanted them to pass out of his sight as soon as possible. He actually talked to them, and when he deemed it appropriate, he asked questions. He even postponed a few cases when the charges were serious and the accused claimed to be unable to afford an attorney. He promptly assigned them to the public defender on the spot.
“This is the second time you’ve come before this court for not having a driver’s license,” he said to a thirtysomething man in work clothes. “Didn’t I order you to get a license last time?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So why are you still driving without one?”
The man shuffled his feet. “I need to g
o to work.”
Wyatt leaned back a little and studied the notes on his desk. “It says here you can’t read. The state has an application for people who can’t read. Why didn’t you get one?”
“I tried.”
At that Wyatt leaned forward. “What kind of work do you do?”
“I work at the ranches. Hired hand.”
“No reading required for that, I suppose.”
“No, sir.”
“So why didn’t you get a license?”
“I keep calling but they’re busy. I can’t even talk to someone. Always busy.”
Wyatt turned to the clerk. “You get me the license people and you get this man an appointment with them before this day is over.”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Wyatt turned back to the man in front of him. “Will you go to the test when my clerk tells you the time?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’d better. And I’m suspending your case pending your getting that license. Crap, can’t get through?” He turned to the clerk again. “Let ’em know I’m not happy about this.”
The clerk almost grinned. “Absolutely.”
He looked at the man. “You stay here until she gets your appointment. And you’d better find somebody to drive you home, because you cannot drive without a license and I don’t want to see you here again. Understood?”
Amber was amazed. Wyatt took a lot of personal interest, sometimes waiving fines when people simply couldn’t pay them. But again and again, when something caught his attention, he zoomed in.
Then came the guy who was in front of him for the second time for driving on a suspended license.
“I told you to stop driving,” Wyatt said. “What makes you think you can ignore the law like this? Your license was suspended for DUI. Now you’re in front of me again for driving when you’re not allowed to?”
The amusing part came after Wyatt ruled, telling the guy that the next time he was going to jail and was being spared this time only because he had small children to support. Then he added, “I’m leaving here in another few minutes, so you’d better find someone to drive you home. Because I’ll recognize your face now and I’ll chase you down and arrest you myself. Got it?”